15 #3
“Sometimes,” Meg said, “a man who is kicked in the head by a horse or hit with a battle hammer…if they survive, sometimes such men lose all knowledge of themselves for a time.”
“How long?” Dominic asked sharply.
“Sometimes days. Sometimes months. Sometimes…forever.”
Sven crossed himself and muttered, “You call it accident. I call it Satan, who knows more disguises than I do.”
“Truly?” Simon asked innocently. “A bemusing thought.”
Dominic ignored them and looked at Meg.
“What do you say, Glendruid healer?” he asked.
“I can’t know whether it is accident or bewitchment until I see Duncan.”
“While Duncan and I fought—,” Simon began.
“You fought?” Meg asked, appalled. “Why?”
“Sir Erik wanted to know the temper of the two new warriors he had found,” Simon said dryly. “So Duncan and I fought to display our skills with the sword.”
Dominic’s smile was as thin as the edge of a dagger.
“I would like to have seen that,” he said. “Your quickness against his strength.”
Simon’s black eyes gleamed with laughter and a warrior’s love of testing himself against another warrior’s skill.
“It was like fighting you,” Simon admitted, “but every bruise was rewarded by the certainty that Duncan hadn’t betrayed his oath of fealty to you.”
“How so?”
“When I said the words ‘Blackthorne Keep,’ Duncan faltered as though at a blow. For an instant the darkness in his eyes lifted and he almost knew me.”
“What happened next?” Meg asked intently.
“I put him on his back in the field. Then I asked him if what Erik had said about his memory was true.”
“And?”
“Duncan said it was.”
“You believed him,” Meg said.
“Aye. He remembered nothing. The hell-witch has stolen his soul.”
Meg flinched at the naked loathing in Simon’s voice. She knew he hated necromancy as few men hated anything.
But she didn’t know why.
“I now knew all that was required,” Simon said. “I made my excuses to Erik, found Sven, and set off for Blackthorne Keep as fast as our horses could carry us.”
Absently, Dominic ran his fingertips over the cool silver of the Glendruid Wolf. Then he turned and looked at Simon and Sven with eyes whose icy clarity precisely matched those of the huge pin.
“Rest for a time,” Dominic said. “When you are ready, the three of us will ride for the Disputed Lands.”
“What will you accomplish with just three men?” Meg asked. “Stone Ring Keep can hold out for months against such a small force.”
“To take any more warriors would endanger Blackthorne Keep.”
Dominic’s expression softened as he smiled at his red-haired wife. He touched Meg’s lower lip with his thumb in a brief, sensual caress.
“Besides,” Dominic added, “don’t you remember what I taught you about the best way to take a well-defended keep?”
“Treachery,” Meg said huskily. “From within.”
“Aye.”
“What will you do?” she asked.
“Somehow they stole Duncan from us. We shall steal him back.”
“How?” Simon asked.
“With a net,” Dominic said succinctly.
“And then?”
“We will teach Duncan who he is,” Dominic said. “Then we will send him back to Stone Ring Keep. When he is inside, he will open the gates for us.”
Sven laughed softly.
Simon simply smiled. “How like you, brother. Bold, yet bloodless.”
“There’s little point to killing good men when better means are available,” Dominic said, shrugging.
“We had best hurry to be about our treacherous business,” Meg said. “The sooner we—”
“We?” Dominic interrupted.
“Aye, husband. We.”
All amusement and sensual indulgence vanished from Dominic’s expression.
“Nay,” he said flatly. “You’re carrying the future of Blackthorne Keep in your womb. You will stay here.”
Meg’s mouth tightened.
“I am many months from birthing your heir,” she said. “I’m as fit as any of your knights to ride. I’m no frail lady unable to pick up a dropped shoe.”
Her voice and expression were every bit as determined as her lord’s.
“Nay,” Dominic said.
Simon looked at his brother, cursed silently, and did what few men would have the courage to do when Dominic looked so fierce. Deliberately Simon cleared his throat, drawing his brother’s attention.
And his ire.
“What is it?” Dominic snarled.
“If Duncan is injured, Meg can treat him. If he is enthralled…” Simon shrugged. “What one witch has done, another witch might undo.”
“We were going to move the household to Carlysle Manor for several fortnights in any case,” Meg said calmly. “The Disputed Lands are but a few days’ gentle ride from Carlysle.”
Dominic remained as silent and forbidding as a drawn sword. Then he lifted his hand and set it beneath Meg’s chin.
“If God willed it, I could bear losing the babe,” Dominic said softly, “but not you. You are my heart.”
Meg turned her head and kissed the scarred hand that held her so gently.
“I have dreamed no Glendruid dreams of death,” she said, “and being parted from you is a kind of dying. Take me with you. Let me do what I was born to do.”
“Heal?”
“Aye.”
There was a long silence. Then Dominic released his wife with a gentle touch and turned to Sven.
“Inform the grooms to ready horses for dawn.”
“How many horses, lord?”
Dominic paused, looked at Meg’s unflinching Glendruid eyes, and knew what he must do whether it pleased him or not.
“Four.”